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Egg Terrapin

A creamy egg and olive mixture flavored with sherry, served in green peppers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and sherry work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 820 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Egg Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the hard-boiled eggs and olives.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Add the chopped eggs and olives to the mixture.

  3. Cook gently until thick, about a few seconds.

  4. Stir in the sherry and serve in green peppers or individual dishes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Olive + sherrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together820 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Cream + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Olive + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they set, giving the filling its body and richness.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, chopped egg texture that holds its shape within the thickened cream.
Cream
Provides moisture and richness, creating a smooth base for the filling.
Olives
Add briny, savoury flavour that contrasts with the rich cream and eggs.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a touch of acidity to balance the richness.

The step that matters

Cook gently until thick. Egg yolks set at low heat, but high heat can curdle or scramble them. Gentle heat thickens the cream smoothly without graininess.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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